written to entertain my American friends in Freiburg's sister city Madison, WI, with odd stories
from Freiburg, Germany, and tales about my travels.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Portrait Mode

In 2000 Red Baron acquired his first digital camera just in time to take many photos of his first grandson. Since then digital photography has progressed by leaps and bounds. I have owned some excellent pocket cameras. As time went by smartphone cameras became better and better with the result that in recent years I have taken all my photos with my iPhones giving my digital camera to Elisabeth.

Well, I admit there is no optical zoom on a smartphone but I still remember the time of analogue photography when I was happy with one focal lens only. The missing zoom has been partly mitigated by the dual camera of the iPhone 7 plus. With the longer focal length I now capture slides with high resolution during lectures even when I am not sitting in the front row. But there is more to it. Using both lenses simultaneously allows you to take photos in portrait mode where the face of a person is in focus while the background comes out blurred.

Red Baron does not take many portraits, for most people are camera-shy. I found another use of Apple's portrait mode in photographing flowers. In the following you may enjoy a collection or rather a whole bunch of flowers I took in my neighborhood over the last months with growing enthusiasm.